Grecian male statue looks up on red background
Sam Stein, chatting with Will Sommer, spoke on The Bulwark podcast Monday about Sommer's bombshell report that the Pentagon is using taxpayer dollars to pay far-right influencers to promote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth online and in various articles.
Sommer, who reports on the far right, had his previous report last Monday, and the Washington Post followed up with its own piece Sunday, exposing several other influencers who were being paid as special government employees. One included
Among the details they found, however, is that Rob Maness was among those making money at the Pentagon when he wrote a story for the Daily Caller. Stein pointed out that the site still hasn't posted a disclaimer on Maness' report attacking "disloyal careerists" at the Pentagon, saying that he was being paid by the Department of Defense at the time he wrote the piece.
Another mentioned by Sommer and the Post was "Data Republican," who has been tracking people they believe to be "Antifa," which stands for anti-fascist.
"The anonymity here, a bunch of these people, if you were just perusing online and you had no clue or the wherewithal to investigate who these people were, you know, 'Cynical Publius,' 'Infantry Dort,' I guess he lists his name there. But, 'Data Republican.' They operate with anonymity. And I have a proposition to you," Stein posed to Sommer. "Was the — was Elon Musk basically scraping any sort of verification requirements on Twitter. Was that not one of the most consequential social media maneuvers ever? We live in a world where people can do this now."
Sommer pointed to "Data Republican," who is able to be "verified" on Musk's X and poses as an expert online, is actually just "a random lady with, I guess, Excel? Maybe not even that."
In the case of "Infentry Dort," Sommer said that anyone looking at him doesn't "realize this guy is, like, essentially a Pete Hegseth spokesperson."
They're people, he continued, who don't indicate that they have been paid to post many of the things they're doing online. In the case of Kurt Schlichter, Sommer said that the man has spent time writing short stories about another U.S. Civil War and that the red states would destroy the blue states.
"So, is this a guy we really want working for the Pentagon? I don't know," Sommer asked.
Cynical Publius does include his real name on his account, but Stein doesn't think anyone on the right would ever have taken him seriously if he had used his own photo as a regular, "glasses-wearing nerd," rather than hiding behind the image of a Greek statue.